Aztec Ned Eames is a management consultant who played tennis at San Diego State in the 1980s and later joined the ATP tour for three years.

He has organized Tenacity, a small group of advisors and contributors who have created an urban tennis program which captures the imagination of more than 2,000 Boston children every summer (See ATR, Vol 1, No 3).

With links to Harvard, MIT, and Boston schools and city recreation programs, Tenacity is a model for the nation: It links academic studies and athletic effort. (A similar program in Washington, DC, also sends maturing young players off to college).

Eames recently opened Tenacity to a reporter and photographer from the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine published by his church, which is headquartered in Boston.

What motivated him to start Tenacity? Eames told the Sentinel the effort grew out of his experience at San Diego State, when he went into a slump and lost 10 matches in a row.

“Not only was my game coming apart, but my emotions were shot,” Eames told the Sentinel. “My temper was flaring and nothing about the game was enjoyable to me.”

Eames decided he needed more study of his faith, so he visited a Christian Science reading room, where he found an issue of the Sentinel with a feature article on motives. “As I read it, and thought about my motives for playing tennis, it became clear to me that while I was purporting to serve God, ultimately I was serving Ned and my vision of how things should go with my tennis game. It was a real eye-opener. I decided from then on to play with the single motive of glorifying God. No matter how I played. I’d put God first.”

Eames admits that while his playing did not improve, he won his next ten matches!

The Sentinel noted that Tenacity “has no connection with any religious organization or philosophy…(but) in one sense it does have a religious purpose.

“The root meaning of religion is ‘to bind’,’ wrote a staff member, “as in vows binding one to a religious order. Eames hopes Tenacity can act as an influence to bind together a city that has sometimes suffered from division by race, ethnicity, and economic status.”

In this way, Eames is fulfilling a commitment to God by pursuing his love of tennis and sharing the sport with new generations.

— John Martin (1957)

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